Approved Modify/remove the rule regarding insults to gender and sexual orientation

[ly_dee]

I initially wanted the rule to be removed but it'd make skial a homophobic and sexist community..

The rule is too vague. I've never seen an admin punish someone for insulting a female, for instance. Everytime someone reports a person for sexism/discrimination (which is rare), most admins say "client mute". So why is there a rule in the first place? You should specify exactly what is meant by insults, just like how you specified what racism is by providing examples.

When people type in !rules or go on skial.com to check the server rules they see that insults to gender and sexual orientations are against the rules. Insults means what it means. So if we followed that guideline, any kind of insult would be worth reporting. Then admins would be overwhelmed by the amount of reports from fragile souls that can't handle trash talks.

It's tricky to enforce such a rule due to the degree of the insults, so at least make it clear once and for all so nobody brings this topic up again and makes a debate about it. Players are not familiar with skial's policy on the matter. They don't know what is considered "serious insults". You need to inform them better. Maybe there is a reason why people don't even bother reporting cases of insults because they always end up being declined. It can be frustrating as they think they're doing good by reporting something that is against the rules by definition but then get told that it's not "serious" enough. So maybe having something like

Racism and other insults to gender, religion and sexual orientation. Does not include discussion of why it is against the rules.​

• Any form of the word nigger (nigga, nigg, etc.) is not allowed even if you are just quoting a rap song or you are black, to prevent racists and kids using the same excuse.
• Generic insults are allowed (faggot, whore, etc.)
• Insults like "you cock thirsty slut shouldn't play video games and should go clean your house instead then spread your legs afterwards so your bf can reward you for your good work", "don't use your mic you fucking queer, you're spreading aids to all the people in the server because of all the cocks that have entered your nasty asshole. You faggots need to die for the straight people to live in a better place", etc. may result in silences.

would be better.

EDIT: to sum up, either modify by adding at least one bullet point to clarify, because skial is not enforcing the rule whatsoever, or even remove it completely.

 

[Meowcenary]

I agree about the rule needing clarification but I think what you want to put in there is too long. People have a tendency to not read the rules as is so Bottiger likes to keep them short as possible from what he said IIRC.

"Racism and extreme insults to gender, religion and sexual orientation."

I think that might work while keeping it short and simple. I just took the existing rule and put a 'extreme' in there. I did remove the "and other" but I think it still might work

 

[JayDee]

just remove all rules

 

[ly_dee]

I agree about the rule needing clarification but I think what you want to put in there is too long. People have a tendency to not read the rules as is so Bottiger likes to keep them short as possible from what he said IIRC.

"Racism and extreme insults to gender, religion and sexual orientation."

I think that might work while keeping it short and simple. I just took the existing rule and put a 'extreme' in there. I did remove the "and other" but I think it still might work

Racism has a bullet point that explains things clearly, the insults part doesn't. My suggestion is just to avoid people debating about it over and over again. It's not about modifying the rule per se, it's adding a couple of examples so you admins can link that to the people complaining.

Edit: and again, "extreme" is vague. If you don't give people proper examples they won't get it.

 

[Kyle]

I agree about the rule needing clarification but I think what you want to put in there is too long. People have a tendency to not read the rules as is so Bottiger likes to keep them short as possible from what he said IIRC.

"Racism and extreme insults to gender, religion and sexual orientation."

I think that might work while keeping it short and simple. I just took the existing rule and put a 'extreme' in there. I did remove the "and other" but I think it still might work

But would adding just one extra bullet point to clarify one of the most arbitrary rules here really be that bad? If it's something simple, then it wouldn't be a big deal. e.g.

• Generic insults like faggot, whore, slut, etc. do not immediately fall under insults to sexual orientation on their own.

 

[Luke]

Could you outline some words which you believe should be enough to get you gagged/muted/silenced? The examples you gave, I would like to believe would get people banned for saying them to another community member- even with the current vague state of the sex discrimination and orientation rules.

Personally, I'd rather have no rules against these things- as it is confusing and inconsistent between people, this is the kind of topic where everyone disagrees. For example, quoting you above... you think that "whore" is a 'generic' insult, whereas I'd say that this nearly always is aimed at and targeted women. "Faggot" is more of a 'generic' term- though originally it has basis in homophobic language (which, you could argue- is also the origin of the hateful usage of "nigger", another term which has become more 'generic' through its use in rap songs and other medic).

Furthermore someone can use language which is offensive, without meaning it in an offensive manner (a good example being "gay", something which Skial does not punish for, rightly so in my opinion, because it has become so widely used). In addition this also crops into accountability through context, say for instance a friend (female) and I (male) are on a server and we're mainly talking through microphones- when people begin typing in the chat, my friend (female) says something and I reply with some form of a sarcastic "Get back in the kitchen" through chat, she finds this hilarious and we continue playing and talking through chat... later on, someone could report me through the forum, quoting the chat line and I get silenced for sexism- despite the fact that I did not mean it in a sexist way, I was being sarcastic and I am good friends with the female who wasn't offended. You could argue that this applies to all comments, but that's the issue. It is one of the things which makes demo recordings much more powerful than screenshots/chat logs, context is everything.

I agree that if Skial has these rules, they should be enforced and that currently no one seems to often (either from a combination of everyone having different opinions of what is "sexist", or from them simply being unsure of what examples they could use and reference to when quoting within ban appeals). It's one of the problems that I don't think can be easily fixed, even with examples.

Edit: Further things I thought about, but forgot to include:

I'm also not sure about these rules existing at all because the rest of the rules are for the server as a whole, not specific individuals- for instance spamming, or hacking, teleporter traps- they affect everyone on the server (or at least everyone on one team), therefore the rules are for the mass. Bottinger has said before that we have a votemute rather than simply having people do client mute because:

And if someone is annoying everyone, it doesn't make sense for 23 people to go through the hassle of muting that 1 person.

When it comes to racism, sexism and other abuses- they're individual specific (or at least few people, saying a racist comment may be intended at one player, but it could affect many). In my opinion unless many players on the server are offended by something, it should be left up to the client mute function to deal with this.

 

[ly_dee]

But would adding just one extra bullet point to clarify one of the most arbitrary rules here really be that bad? If it's something simple, then it wouldn't be a big deal. e.g.

• 
  Generic insults like faggot, whore, slut, etc. do not immediately fall under insults to sexual orientation on their own.

It wouldn't. Again, my point is, just like racism, the insults part needs clarification. That's all. I've reread some reports and complaints today and it does need clarification because it's the same debate everytime.

 

[LiterallyCody]

Nice. This generation is already turning out great, do we need to mute players for supporting Donald Trump? From what I understand in this "Idea", the person is asking for more censorship. Like racism is understandable, but nobody in the server really gives a shit about sexual orientation or sexuality, that's if you constantly bring it up. No offense.

 

[RMSniper]

Nice. This generation is already turning out great, do we need to mute players for supporting Donald Trump? From what I understand in this "Idea", the person is asking for more censorship. Like racism is understandable, but nobody in the server really gives a shit about sexual orientation or sexuality, that's if you constantly bring it up. No offense.

She is clearly saying that we have a rule that has no explanation, not that she necessarily agrees with there needing to be a rule against it.

 

[LiterallyCody]

She is clearly saying that we have a rule that has no explanation, not that she necessarily agrees with there needing to be a rule against it.

Still, it doesn't need to be made. It's just unnecessary. Like if it were to be made, a lot of players would be banned, I'd say at least half the community would be gone. Just saying, we don't need some "Politically Correct" or "Social Justice Warrior" rule.

 

[Chance]

Nice. This generation is already turning out great, do we need to mute players for supporting Donald Trump? From what I understand in this "Idea", the person is asking for more censorship. Like racism is understandable, but nobody in the server really gives a shit about sexual orientation or sexuality, that's if you constantly bring it up. No offense.

We should.

+1

 

[ly_dee]

Nice. This generation is already turning out great, do we need to mute players for supporting Donald Trump? From what I understand in this "Idea", the person is asking for more censorship. Like racism is understandable, but nobody in the server really gives a shit about sexual orientation or sexuality, that's if you constantly bring it up. No offense.

You really need to reread what i said more carefully.

 

[Luke]

Still, it doesn't need to be made. It's just unnecessary. Like if it were to be made, a lot of players would be banned, I'd say at least half the community would be gone. Just saying, we don't need some "Politically Correct" or "Social Justice Warrior" rule.

No one is saying this, there's nothing "politically correct" about punishing people who harass, the community should have every effort to be as welcoming and friendly as possible. There IS already a rule in place which should stop this, what @ly_dee is inquiring about is the enforcement of this rule and if we could get specific examples of when it does and does not apply. If you believe that "at least half" the community would be gone, then you're completely wrong- half of the community does not use sexist, racist or sexual orientation related insults.

 

[Sheev_Palpatine]

+1 On clarifying it a little bit. It doesn't have to be a lengthy change, but word choice can help a lot as others have already said. I've never had to punish anyone for sexism, but it's been brought to me by users in the past. Ly_dee has a good point. Why is it in the rules if we never do anything about it aside from suggesting a client mute 99% of the time? It's a slippery slope but yes I would like a change, even if it is a small one.

 

[Sargent¥]

Still, it doesn't need to be made. It's just unnecessary. Like if it were to be made, a lot of players would be banned, I'd say at least half the community would be gone. Just saying, we don't need some "Politically Correct" or "Social Justice Warrior" rule.

So 3 million+ players would leave Skial if we put one additional word into our rules (changing insults to extreme insults)?

+1 on the description change

 

[KillerZebra]

I think we added that rule back in the day because certain admins were trying to ban people for almost anything that could be offensive. I don't think we should have a rule against sexism or religion.

I think of it this way, I am not going to ban a girl for saying "lmao zebra is a dude. guys think with their dicks they are lowlifes" . So why ban a guy for saying "go make me a sandwich". Its the internet, and this can easily be solved by a server mute, and if that fails they can client mute the person.

 

[ly_dee]

I think we added that rule back in the day because certain admins were trying to ban people for almost anything that could be offensive. I don't think we should have a rule against sexism or religion.

I think of it this way, I am not going to ban a girl for saying "lmao zebra is a dude. guys think with their dicks they are lowlifes" . So why ban a guy for saying "go make me a sandwich". Its the internet, and this can easily be solved by a server mute, and if that fails they can client mute the person.

It is a completely different suggestion you're making and i doubt you'll get support for removing that rule because like i said, it'd make skial a sexist and homophobic community that only cares about racism.
In this suggestion i'm just asking for at least one bullet point to make things clear and to avoid dumb reports from butthurts and feminists mostly.

 

[KillerZebra]

That's because homophobic and sexist reports are dumb. And sexists reports are only for females because as i said, no one here is going to ban a girl for making fun of a guy for being a guy so why do it vice versa.

It is a rated M game. we shouldn't care about jumping inbetween peoples arguments for trivial things such as sexism and homophobia

 

[ly_dee]

That's because homophobic and sexist reports are dumb. And sexists reports are only for females because as i said, no one here is going to ban a girl for making fun of a guy for being a guy so why do it vice versa.

I know that and i agree. Then make another suggestion about removing that rule, geez zebra!!!

 

[Fairnessplease]

I agree with KillerZebra, being sexist is merely an insult, if you choose to get butthurt over it, then mute him using the in-client game. But if someone is racist, that is totally different. Making an M RATED game into a feminist game is pretty funny lol.